Ants are extremely amazing creatures. Since childhood, we have learned from the discipline and all other necessary stuff in schools. So how do they do it? Of course some kind of mechanism which controls and tells them to do all their chores of feeding, searching food and reproducing colonies. So. The presence of the brain is obvious. As ants are smaller creatures so their brains are relatively smaller in size. An ant community collectively will be similar to a human brain because an ant has approximately 25000 brain cells. On the other hand, the human brain has approximately ten million.

20 surprising ant facts

Strength:

 You may not believe it but ants are supermen of the genre Arthropoda. They can carry weight or bear force a lot of time more than their weight.  The capability to carry weight depends upon the species. For example, Asian ant is capable of bearing up to 100 times than its own weight. And you might be amazed this superpower is surprising because of their small size which provides them a different cross-sectional area than any other large surfaced animal. do you want to know about Carpenter ants with wings?

Lungs absence:

Yeah, you heard me right ants do not have lungs. Lungs are absent due to their small size is not capable of accommodating such a complex system. Instead, they have managed to exchange gases effectively. Ants have a hole like structures on the sides of their bodies as they move the oxygen is evenly distributed in the body. These holes are known as “spiracles”.

Ants and more ants:

To your amaze ants have inhabited almost all the world except some places like the North Pole and a handful of islands. Otherwise, there is at least one species of ant is at least present in almost every country. It is estimated that there are so many ants in the world such that for every one person there will be 1 million ants available.

Asexuality:

According to the circumstances ants are capable of evolving themselves into something better and that is the key to their invading presence all over the world. Researches have shown that there are some species of ants available that can reproduce without the presence of a male member in the community. Some species of ants in amazon display this trait. The queen ant can reproduce working on the principle of making genetic copies of itself creating offspring identical to her.

Farming:

Don’t laugh you read it right ants do farming. Just like human beings do farming with cows, sheep, and ghosts, ants also farm insects like farming in the sense that they develop a relationship with the other insect and they both get to benefit from each other. The major example in that they farm the aphids. They provide them with shelter and in return, the aphid provides them with the delicious treat of honey.

Big tummy:

Yeah, small aunts with a big tummy. Funny isn’t it? Big tummies mean, unlike humans they exhibit two stomachs. One they use for containing the food and other they use for sharing it with community members.

Swimmers:

By counting their superpowers up till now it is obvious that ants are extremely superb survivors. Not all species of ants can swim but due to their adaptive nature, they can survive water. They have developed a foot paddle that helps them to survive waters. Also, they can float well in waters.

Slave makers:

Some species of ants raid other species of ants to capture them and then they use them to work for them. These special type of ants invade only those species which are very similar to them. After attacking the victim species work in colonies as they would work in theirs but for the invading ants. 

 Colony size:

Their colony sizes are way bigger than human farms. Researches have shown that there are some species that can contain up to three hundred million individuals.

Task assignment:

The only female ant which can reproduce is the “Queen”. On the other hand, all other females act as foster mother and they feed and take care of larvae find the food and take care of the nest and the colony whereas male ants just help in reproducing.

NO ears:

Due to their small size ants cannot have complicated ears and their auditory canals instead they feel the sound with the help of vibration coming towards them. There are specific features present on their which helps them to detect vibration. They also feel the vibrations in their surroundings by their antennas and with tiny hairs present on their body.

Are ants zombies?

Yes, some species of ants can be infected by a fungus that takes hold of their brain by eating their external skeleton. Surprisingly after taking the whole control, it forces the ant to leave the colony and then to take a deadly bite of a leaf which causes the ant to die.

Do ants have feelings?

As ants don’t have a very complex brain so they are also unable to differentiate between very core emotions which we mainly associate the word “feelings” with like love, hate, anger, etc. though they have antennas through which they can sense danger or food. They also have vibration detectors as well on their feet. But they may not feel the damage that occurs within their bodies as there are no sensors present there therefore, they are vulnerable to be attacked by parasites.

Why some ants have bigger brains?

Ants with larger societies would likely have larger brains because with the increasing number of members the number of chores and tasks will increase. For example, research showed that ants that save the colony from attackers expressed aggressive behaviors while ants that work for food management was marked with good memories in their brains. Whereas, in a smaller colony both ants do both of the jobs without any specific segregation in their brains. This explains that with expanding the size of colony ants have made themselves capable of evolving their brain areas according to their requirements.

Do ants have brains and hearts?

As it is clear from the above discussion that to perform tasks and chores to survive in a colony or in a nest; ants specifically have a brain that contains up to 250000 brain cells. Whereas an ant community can collectively be said to like a human brain which means the whole community works like a human brain.

As far as hearts are concerned they don’t have any structure which is similar to a human heart but it is found that they have evolved an organ that is similar in functionality to the heart called the dorsal aorta.

Do ants have organs?

Like all other organisms, ants have organs as well. Otherwise, how will they eat, digest, secrete and reproduce? The thing is they have organs present both inside and outside of their body.

Organs similar to blood vessels:

As ants don’t have blood rather than they have a fluid which is similar to blood called “Hemolymph” and it does not ravel within tubule or vessels whether it has freely flown in the whole body. The only tubes that are present inside their body are for the respiratory purpose which is called spirals.

Chitinous skeleton:

Ants also have muscles just like the human do. But these muscles are not contained by bones like we do. Instead, they have a skeleton made of chemicals of which are nails are made up of called chitin. In addition to skeleton and muscles, some species of ants may exhibit a venom gland as well which excrete venom like a shooter spray which protects them from their predators.

Gut organs:

Their digestive is quite comparable with that of the phylum vertebra. They also eat from their mouth passes the food onto the stomach for digestion purposes and release the excretory waste from their posterior part called the rectum. The main distinction is that they possess two stomachs one for holding the food whereas the other is used to take the food back to the colony so that it can be shared with the worker-members.

Ant brain v/s human brain

A whole colony of ant is similar to that of the human brain and each member of the colony can be considered as one neuron connected with the other neurons to collectively perform the function of the brain. They are mysterious organisms capable of building unbelievable nests and infrastructure which is a similarity to the human brain. Also, they have an excellent management system and they have divided their tasks so well that they are even much better than humans. We might consider a single ant as nothing but when they are together in the form of a colony they are capable of doing things that are hard to believe. Particularly their capability of creating infrastructure and reproducing and managing techniques are among the top of them in making them superorganisms.

Ants learn fast and do not forget

Researches have shown that when two colonies of ants are studied the one is of larger size and the other one is smaller. As the bigger colony was studied it was seen that for specific tasks there were specific workers and they memorized their work so well that the ants working at the base are protecting the colony from invaders so they are aggressive in nature and never forget who their enemies are and the ants that forge leaves for the food also know the places and memorize them.

Do ants see, have brains?

Ants basically have eyes through which they can hardly see they have a pair of compound eyes so they do not have a very good sight but can easily detect movements, they have a brain system as explained earlier. Besides seeing the feel and smell through vibration detection.